


You Give Love a Bad Name

by Niki



Series: Hurt/Comfort Sequence [5]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: lewis_challenge, Episode: s04e01 The Dead of Winter, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having been shot is not actually why he hurts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Give Love a Bad Name

**Author's Note:**

> Lewis Secret Santa story for Sarren in lewis_challenge.
> 
> Huge thank you to my Brit picker and beta lygtemanden for a last minute check.

_"To be honest, I'm not sure I want to wake up in twenty years' time with nothing more to show than a life spent picking though other people's misery."_

He means the words when he says them, he looks at his boss and sees his future and it chokes him, makes him clutch Scarlett even closer to his heart, his side, but she's about to marry another man, and is not really the girl he remembers, and there's the murder – his job – to think of.

It doesn't justify hurting his boss, his friend, the man who has given him more chances than anyone could expect, already, and sleeping with a witness – suspect – in a murder investigation... He should feel so bad about that, and he does, but he knows it's for the wrong reasons and he's so full of everything he feels like exploding, feels like he can't breathe.

Time is running out, Scarlett is going to marry the other guy and his career is in ruins and Lewis is mad at him, again, and damn, he can't even separate in his mind which of these hurts him the most.

He tells himself it's Scarlett but, when it counts, being a policeman wins. In the end he has no problem seeing her as a suspect, or treating her as one, and damn his past, damn her family, Lewis was right and this is not going to end pretty.

Still, he has to ask. With his bullet wound cleaned and stitched, his arm throbbing in a sling, watching her being loaded into a police car, going down for her family, he has to ask. Her words feel like another bullet, and again – still – he can't breathe.

"You're not one of us."

\- - -

Lewis drives him home. They're quiet in the car, and James can't help but go over everything again and again in his mind. He feels numb.

Lewis doesn't say a word but drives them to his place, instead. James is fiercely glad he doesn't have to be alone with his thoughts.

“Do you know what she said?” he asks quietly after Lewis has deposited him on the sofa and has gone to make tea, judging from the sounds coming from behind him. “'You're not one of us.'”

His numbness is gone, replaced by burning anger. 

“And dammit, I'm glad, I'm glad I'm not like them, doing anything to keep the good name clean, but it still bloody hurts! I know how to choose them, don't I? Fiona... she didn't want anything to tie her here, to keep her back, she wanted light, but I can't do that, I can't be that, I had to complicate everything, and it's not like I planned to fall for a co-worker. Zoë – Feardorcha – isn't that just the best? She – he – she told me what I wanted – needed – to hear because no one ever said it to her, and maybe she really cared the most because at least she drugged me first!” He can't stop the rant once he has started, everything he has been keeping bottled pouring out to an unwilling audience. He tells himself it's the pain of the wound, even as he knows that's not really why it hurts. “Why do I even bother? What's the point? What is wrong with me?”

“Love is never wrong,” says Lewis, quietly, quoting Will and suddenly James is crying. 

It must look as ugly as it sounds, his body trembling with the sobs that feel like they are torn out of his body, and then Lewis is there, handing him a tissue, resting a hand on his shoulder, and he leans forward, desperate for his warmth, and Lewis pulls him to his side.

He didn't mean to fall for a co-worker, again. Did he latch onto Scarlett so desperately to avoid facing the fact he has done so again? 

He meets Lewis' eyes, for once not caring what his own are revealing. Too much, because Lewis sits up, his face changing. 

“Lad...”

He shakes his head, tears still falling. Not now. He can't hear this now, but Lewis doesn't look shocked or disgusted or any of the expressions he expected. He looks almost sad.

“Now is not the time,” he says, quietly, but leans closer again, letting James rest against his warm body.

Eventually he calms down, and soothed by the touch of another human, falls asleep.

\- - -

Much later, floating on a cloud of pain medication, safely tucked into a corner of Lewis' sofa, he feels it. Relaxation, the band around his chest easing, drawing a breath, then another, blood filled with oxygen again.

"I'm sorry," he says into the silence.

"About?" Lewis asks, like he's forgotten, or then there are too many things he thinks James should apologise for.

"Earlier. What I said. I wasn't being fair. It's not like you chose... to be alone."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not! I was out of line and..."

"But you're right. At your age I already had a family to go home to after work, something more, something to ground me. And I did not choose to be alone now."

He pauses, staring into the distance.

"My grandmother had a habit of repeating herself, as old people do – don't say it, James – and one of the sayings she loved was 'Man proposes, God disposes.'"

"Homo proponit sed Deus disponit," James quotes, solemnly.

Lewis' glare could be translated as 'show off' or even 'get out'. To James it says, 'you're forgiven'.

He smiles for what feels like the first time since the beginning of the case and rests his head against the back of the sofa. In no time at all he is asleep.

\- - -

The half an hour of sleep he got on Lewis' sofa before the older man woke him up is the best he's had in days. 

Lewis drives him home, helps him remove the sling and hovers while he changes his clothes.

"I'll manage," he says, when his fingers slip clumsily on the buttons and Lewis moves closer to help. He doesn't think he could handle his help now, can't bear to have him so close, not when he's this vulnerable.

He knows which hurts worst, now. Not Scarlett, not even the job – which he has miraculously kept, again, thanks to Lewis... No. It's the fear of disappointing this man. Of losing his friendship, his presence, his... affection. 

"I'll be fine," he says, for what feels like the dozenth time but yet he is glad to have Lewis there. Not out of duty but caring. 

\- - -

Days turn to weeks and his arm heals. He has a new scar, an endless reminder of how he almost lost everything again. 

But the memory is not all bad. Lewis said “not now,” he didn't say “not ever.”

He looks at his boss and sees his future, and this time it doesn't frighten him.


End file.
